


A Fine Line

by JustCallMeAgent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amortentia, F/M, Marauders' Era, Maybe - Freeform, Slow Burn, Tutoring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustCallMeAgent/pseuds/JustCallMeAgent
Summary: Sirius Black and Sara Bennett hate each other. Hate is a strong word but it is the one they choose to use nonethelessWhen Sirius finds himself in need of a potions tutor, Sara seems to be the least awful option. Amidst the arguing and bickering, Sirius actually manages to learn a thing or two, both about potions and about the girl he thought he hated.Sara's plan has always been to just get through life as quickly as possible. Although she truly did think of Hogwarts as her real home, she had no qualms about leaving it, and her fellow classmates, behind to graduate in just a few short months. She had no time for friends, no time to grieve the recent losses she's experienced, and certainly no time for something as fickle as love. She was perfectly fine going about her life alone thank you very much. The idea that she may be questioning her resolve (because of SIRIUS BLACK of all people) is quite frankly, terrifying to her. But perhaps, a little bit of love in her life wouldn't be the end of the world?Throughout their last year at Hogwarts, the two will learn that what they consider hate, can often be a mere disguise for something far stronger.





	1. Chapter 1

 “I can’t believe this.

“Slughorn actually wants me to get a tutor. Me? Sirius Black, needing a tutor? It’s preposterous!”

Remus Lupin sighed for what felt like the twentieth time that day. This morning, Professor Slughorn had pulled his best friend aside to tell him that his grades were getting dangerously low and that Sirius should consider asking one his fellow classmates to help him with his potions – “preferably someone that is… shall I say, _excelling_ in the subject.”

“After all,” Slughorn had said, “this is your NEWTS year and I’m afraid you’ll need all the help you can get if you hope to succeed in passing your exams.” Slughorn had never liked Sirius – or so Sirius had insisted, at least.

Ever since potions that morning, Sirius had been complaining about it. Quite vocally, Remus might add. It was now dinner and Remus was still listening to Sirius point out all the reasons for Slughorn being a “clueless oaf, who wouldn’t recognise proper genius if I sat on his desk and hit him over the head with my intellect and wit.”

It took another ten minutes of this for James to finally snap, much to Remus’ relief.

“Oh Merlin’s beard, Padfoot! Would you just ask someone to help you study already and be done with it.” There was a moment of silence while Sirius scowled at his best friend.

“Fine.” Sirius huffed. “Well who am I supposed to ask then? It’s not like anyone here’s going to be much help. I’m ten times smarter than this lot anyway.” That last part was muttered under his breath, a stubborn pout forcing it’s way onto his face as he gestured to the collective group of students sitting among them in the Great Hall, but Sirius’ friends heard it nonetheless.

“No clue.” James shrugged, taking no offense to his friend’s last comment. He knew Sirius didn’t mean anything by it, he was just pissy because Slughorn had injured his pride. “I’m rubbish at potions, so I’m out.”

“Prongs.” Sirius fixed him with a pointed look. “Your dad is literally a potions master. How is it you managed to miss out on that gene?”

“It’s just so _boring_.” James shrugged with a laugh, as if that was answer enough. Sirius supposed it was.

“Yeah.” Sirius sighed in agreement and then turned to Remus, who, upon seeing the look on his friend’s face, immediately cringed away. “How ‘bout it, Moony? You’re great at every subject.” He smiled at his friend, hopeful.

“Sorry, Padfoot.” Remus replied, and he really did look it. “It’s just that I’m having a hard time keeping up with my own studies and… well, it’s coming up to that time again, you know, and I’m feeling pretty run down as it is.”

As a matter of fact, Sirius noted, Remus _was_ looking a lot paler than usual. Perhaps the stress of their exam year was making his transformations even harder. Sirius made a mental note to keep a closer eye on Moony this full moon.

“Don’t worry about it, Moony,” Sirius waved a dismissive hand, “I’ll find someone else.”

“What about Lily Evans?” Peter chimed in, “She’s brilliant at potions.”

Upon hearing Lily’s name, almost like clockwork, James’ hand flew up to his head to fluff his hair as he straightened.

“That’s true.” James nodded eagerly, “Lily is the smartest student in probably all of Hogwarts and she’s always so kind to people. I’m sure she’d help you study for potions.” James’ face suddenly brightened as he was struck with an idea, “Hey, maybe I could study with you guys? After all, I’m rubbish at it too, like you said.”

“Merlin.” Sirius flinched at his friend’s desperation, “Look, before you get into another one of your Lily Rants, I’m not asking Evans to help me.”

“Well, why not?” James asked, dejectedly.

“Because,” Sirius explained none too gently, “You’ll just get me to talk about you the whole time. Or worse, you actually _will_ join us and it’ll just turn into another Potter-Evans Battle Royale. Honestly Prongs, I thought you said this year was going to be different this time?”

James huffed defiantly, but said nothing in response. He knew Sirius was right.

“Well, who are you going to ask then?” Peter asked curiously, around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

“I don’t know.” Sirius sighed, slouching back in his seat and taking a large bite out of the bread roll sitting on his plate in front of him. “But I need to find someone soon before Slughorn picks someone himself. You should’ve heard him, ugh.” Sirius screwed his face up to morph into the patronising expression Slughorn had worn earlier that morning, and raised his voice in a crude imitation of his teacher’s voice. “I’m afraid a tutor is _absolutely_ necessary Mister Black, if you intend on passing my class. If you are struggling to think of a suitable candidate, perhaps I could appoint a student of my choosing to aide you in your studies. Mister Snape, perhaps?”

James visibly shuddered beside him, Sirius joining him soon after, at the thought of being forced to learn potions from _Snivellus._

“Merlin, no.” James grimaced and laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder in a show of support. “We’ll think of someone, Padfoot. We’ll find you a tutor so good at potions that you’ll be getting Outstandings within the week.”

Sirius smiled at his friend in thanks, as he munched down on the roll in his hand.

“Well,” Remus began hesitantly, “You could ask Sara Bennett to help you? She’s always been pretty good with potions.”

“Bennett?” Sirius’ nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Oh, here we go.” James rolled his eyes, removing his hand from Sirius’ shoulder and bracing himself for what was to come.

“That snobby know-it-all that thinks she’s _so_ much better than the rest of her house that she won’t even _grace_ us with her _oh so fabulous_ presence?” Sirius sneered, gesturing to the other end of the table where indeed, only four of the five Gryffindor seventh year girls were sitting.

“Oh, come off it, Padfoot. You don’t even properly know her.” Remus said, coming to the absent girl’s defence. “Have you ever really even spoken to Bennett before, besides the usual bickering?”

“I don’t have to.” Sirius shrugged with his chin raised and nose in the air stubbornly, giving off a slight ‘holier than thou’ vibe. “I know her type. Not a fan.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” James guffawed, “I seem to remember a certain eleven year old punching Joshua Sven in the jaw for asking if it was true you were already set up to marry on of your cousins because ‘isn’t that what all you pureblood types do?’” James shook his head in amusement. “Talk about judging a person, Padfoot.”

Sirius didn’t give a reply to that, but he did lower his head a little and had the courtesy to look ashamed, even if it was only slightly.

“Look,” James reasoned, “You may not be the biggest fan of Bennett but she really is good at potions. Remember that time last year when she saved Remus’ Draught of Living Death from exploding, after he fell asleep on his desk because it was the week of a full moon?”

“Slughorn said it was among the best draughts made by a student he’d ever seen and she didn’t say a thing.” Remus added with a nod and a blush, “Gave me all the credit.”

“At least she’d be better than having Snape teaching you.” Peter added, helpfully. Sirius sighed, seemingly convinced, if somewhat grudgingly so.

“Okay, fine.” He relented, “I’ll ask Bennett to help me with potions. Any idea where Her Highness might be?” He asked his friends, looking around the Great Hall.

“Well it’s Friday.” Remus said, thoughtfully, “So she’ll probably be in the library at around seven, if you want to ask her then.”

Sirius narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“How do you know that?” He shared a look with a similarly suspicious James. Peter continued eating his mashed potatoes.

“Oh – eh, no reason.” A slight blush could be seen snaking it’s way up Remus’ neck and spreading across his pale cheeks. “I just uh – see her in there from time to time. On Fridays. When I’m in there. Because I go to the library a lot and I sometimes see her in there on Fridays. Sometimes at seven o’ clock.”

“Uh huh.” Sirius slowly withdrew from his blushing friend, choosing to address whatever _that_ was at a later stage. “Well, I guess I’m going to head to the library then.” He stood up from the table and made his way to the doors of the Great Hall. Throwing his head back over his shoulder and raising his voice so his friend’s would hear him, he added, “If I’m not back in an hour, send back up!”

That earned a laugh from the remaining three boys sitting at the Gryffindor table.

Once Sirius’ retreating form disappeared out the door, James turned to Peter and Remus, a mischievous smirk dancing across his features.

“They’re going to kill each other.” He laughed and it didn’t take long for the other two boys to join in on the laughter.

***

After a not so quick detour to the kitchens (what? He’s a growing young man… and he missed dessert), Sirius arrived at the library by around 7.30. Perfect. Little Miss Superior should be here by now, assuming Moony’s – let’s face it, creepy – information was correct.

It took Sirius almost ten minutes walking around the large library before he finally spotted her. There she was sitting in a dark corner where, unless you were actively searching for her, you would never have noticed her. Sara Bennett.

If Sirius was being honest, he didn’t exactly know why he hated the girl as much as he did. There was no denying that he hated her, that was for sure, but he couldn’t quite pin point the exact reason why. Something about her just really _got to him_. Perhaps it was her cold, rigid demeanour, or the way she just had to look like she knew exactly what she was doing every second of the day. Perhaps it was because Sirius found her to be rude, arrogant, and always acted far too superior to mingle with a lowly Gryffindor such as himself, as though the mere effort of replying to his comments was beneath her – and yet she always had a snide remark ready to throw back at him every time. Perhaps it was all of the above. Yep, definitely all of that.

Sirius watched as Her Highness continued reading her book, oblivious to his eyes on her.

It wasn’t like she was horrible to look at or anything. On the contrary, she was extremely beautiful. Long, seemingly endless, legs were crossed at the ankles beneath the desk she sat at. Creamy alabaster skin that Sirius suspected probably felt as smooth as it looked, not a pimple in sight. Full red lips, obviously tinted with some form of cosmetics but still managing to not look completely painted on. Impossibly black, thick, shiny hair that fell down to her elbows and cheekbones that could cut a man.

She was like a sexy Snow White, Sirius thought to himself jokingly.

Although he would never admit to finding Bennett attractive aloud, there was one thing Sirius could not deny. Sara Bennett has the most beautiful eyes you will ever see. Ridiculously long, black lashes framed them, along with meticulously groomed eyebrows, the same shade as her hair. Sirius had heard one of the other Gryffindor girls saying that Bennett was of Italian and Irish descent, but looking at her now, the subtle turn up at the edges of each eye, and the slightly exotic feel they gave off, Sirius would hazard a guess that there was something else in there too. But the really annoying thing about Bennett’s eyes was the colour. They were a deep shade of forest green with swirls of a brighter emerald that almost seemed to move under the light. For some reason, that really confused Sirius because they were such a warm, cosy colour but Sara Bennett somehow managed to make them look cold and sharp. Always judging, calculating.

Basically, Sirius surmised, putting an end to his inner monologue of checking Bennett out, she was hot.

But, like he always told his friends; half of it was most likely body charms and transfiguration spells. Or maybe she was a metamorphmagus? His little cousin Dora was a metamorphmagus and it was unbelievable the changes she could make to herself, and she was barely five years old. Imagine what a fully grown one could make themselves look like? Probably something like Bennett most likely.

The truth is though, if she were anyone else, Sirius probably would’ve asked her out years ago. Hell, he might’ve even dated her. But she wasn’t someone else. She was Sara Bennett, and Sirius wouldn’t touch _her_ with a 10 foot long wand, let alone go out with her. But it wasn’t just Sirius that felt that way. Oh, no. Sara Bennett was about as fond of Sirius Black as he was of her.

So, after five or so minutes of staring at Bennett, wishing he could ask someone else to help him with stupid potions, Sirius took a deep breath and stepped forward.

For a moment he said nothing, just stood in front of her waiting for her to notice him standing there. Finally, she slowly raised her head and those confusing green eyes locked onto his hands, balled up into fists, then his clenched jaw, his mouth which was pressed into a straight line, and then finally landed on his own grey eyes. A slow smirk formed on her lips.

“Black.” She said in greeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sara's appearance is based off of my beautiful Chinese-Italian friend (you know who you are you Disney Princess you) and she really does have the most ridiculous Fanfiction Eyes (TM) I've ever seen, honestly it's obscene.
> 
> I already have the entire middle and most of the ending of this story wrote up in my head, I just need to figure out how to get there and then type it out. Hopefully updates won't be too irregular but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.
> 
> Comments on what you think of it is GREATLY appreciated but not obligatory. Thanks for reading this lil' story of mine, you're awesome!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for any grammar mistakes, I plan on going back and editing everything once it's done.

“Black.”

“Bennett.” Sirius replied, allowing a slight bitter tone to slip through, before remembering the reason for him standing here, in front of his stuck up classmate, in the first place. He rearranged his facial features to display his most winning smile and rested his shoulder against a nearby bookshelf, shifting his weight to one side and crossing his ankles so that he was balancing on the one foot.

“Having a nice day so far?” He smiled again, lowering his voice to that lazy drawl that always seemed to drive girls crazy.

“I _was_.” Bennett replied, chin raised in the air. She glanced at him one more time in her usual ‘why is such filth even near me?’ way, before resuming focus on the book in her hands, supposedly finished with this less than favourable interaction.

Sirius suppressed an irritated growl, instead, choosing to crank up the charm. He put his hand on her desk for support, as he leaned in closer to her, peering over the top of the book slightly so that he could just about read the upside-down letters.

“Any good?” He kept his voice low and soft, allowing his eyes to drift away from the pages of the book. Faces mere inches apart, he raised his gaze, ready to meet hers full on. Only to be met with the top of her head.

She was still completely focused on the damn book. Taking a moment to study her, Sirius noted that her eyes were even moving across the page, following each word – so not even pretending then. Huh, Sirius thought to himself, that move usually works. Or at least gets their attention.

No matter. He still hadn’t budged from his spot, charming smile still firmly in place.

“What do you want, Black?” Bennett sighed, still not bothering to raise her head to meet his eyes.

Sirius harrumphed, backing out of her personal space at last, and straightened.

“I was wondering if you would like to be my study partner for potions.”

“Why would I want to do that?” She _still_ hasn’t tore her eyes away from the pages of the book she was reading, but now her voice had taken on that annoyingly superior tone, and her eyebrows crinkled just slightly, as if to convey what an utter inconvenience this whole thing has been for her. “Why don’t you just study with one of your boy band buddies? Or pick a girl more susceptible to your… _charms_ , and less likely to deny doing your homework for you.”

Merlin, he really disliked this girl. Surely there must be someone else he can ask for help?

Then again, she is one of the best in the class, with the exception of Lily Evans obviously. But he knew asking Evans would only turn into a James thing, and if Sirius was being completely honest, he really didn’t want to fail potions. As much as his carefree persona may suggest otherwise, he really had a thing against failing. Chalk it up to sketchy family issues, or whatever.

Sirius sighed. Okay, let’s try this again.

“Alright, look,” He began, unsurprised when Bennett elected to _not look_ at him, “Slughorn is forcing me to get a tutor and, to _everyone’s_ surprise I’m sure, you turned out to be the lesser of two evils.”

Finally, a reaction.

“Excuse me?” Bennett had finally lowered that cursed book, seemingly giving Sirius her full attention. He wasn’t so sure he wanted it now.

“Look, it’s simple,” For some reason, Sirius couldn’t seem to meet her eyes all of a sudden. “I’m not doing so good in the subject, I’ve _heard_ you’re not awful at it. So…I would be _grateful_ if you could -”

“Well.” Bennett interjected.

“Huh?” Sirius glanced back down at the girl, in confusion.

“You’re not doing so _well_ in the subject.” Bennett clarified. Merlin, did she have to be such a stuck up hag all the time?

“Will you help me or not?” Sirius grit his teeth. He should’ve asked Evans, the James issue be damned.

“Depends.” Bennett smirked smugly, one eyebrow raised as she considered Sirius. Oh she was just _loving_ this, he could tell. “What’s in it for me?”

Sirius considered this for a moment.

“What do you want?” He shrugged uncaring, but his gaze remained guarded, becoming more so when he noticed Bennett’s smirk go from smug to something much more devious.

“Hmm.” She contemplated, glancing up at nothing as she considered her options. “I’m not so sure there’s anything of value that you can really do for me to be honest.”

Yet again, Sirius suppressed a growl.

“I’ll owe you.” He ground out, wishing he hadn’t been so easily convinced by his friends to go to Bennett, of all people, for help. Bennett’s eyes lit up upon hearing Sirius’ words and he immediately regretted offering this girl, whom he _despised_ , an IOU.

“Oh, that could work.” She smirked again. Yep, definitely something sinister about that smirk. “Alright, you got a deal, Black.”

She stood up from her desk and stuck her hand out, expectantly. When Sirius moved to catch her hand and give it one brief – and surprisingly firm – shake, he couldn’t help but notice the lack of height difference between the two of them. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t just a little bit relieved to find that Bennett wasn’t taller than him. He’d also be lying if he said that even if she had turned out to be shorter than him, it wouldn’t change the fact that he still found her just a _smidge_ intimidating. The mere thought of that fact alone was enough to make Sirius dislike the girl even more – even if she had agreed to help him out.

Dropping his hand as quickly as she had grabbed it, Bennett returned to her perch at the desk, picking up her book again with an easy expression on her face.

“I’m free tomorrow at five. You can meet me here, and you better not be late, Black.”

“Tomorrow?” Sirius asked, incredulously. “But – tomorrow’s a Saturday.”

“And?” Bennett asked, not understanding what the big deal was, having already returned to reading her book. Sirius wanted to grab that damn book right out of her hands and rip it up, muggle style.

“And?!” He exclaimed, earning a sharp look from Madam Pince who just happened to be walking by. He lowered his voice but maintained the venomous tone. “And I don’t know about you, but _normal_ people usually spend their Saturdays doing things they actually _enjoy_.”

“I can only do Saturdays.” Bennett shrugged. She seemed to have reverted back to not looking at Sirius, apparently having lost interest in the conversation. “I’m busy the rest of the week.”

Sirius bit back a nasty retort that was something on the lines of being surprised she could even be busy, considering she never bothered to have any friends. What could she possibly be busy doing?

“If you want my help, Black, you’ll be here tomorrow at five. Take it or leave it.” She continued, unaffected by his internal grumbling.

“Fine.” Sirius scoffed, suddenly wanting to leave this dingy old library as soon as possible.

Bennett smirked to herself, as she turned the page to the sound of Sirius Black muttering curses to himself, finally leaving her in peace.

 

***

 

Sara’s Friday had started out like any other. As usual, she was the first of the girls in her dorm to wake up. She had showered, dressed and then headed down for breakfast before the sun had even begun to break through the early morning sky, just like every other day.

Since it was still too early for breakfast to be served, Sara had forgone the Great Hall as always, and headed straight down to the kitchens. When she reached them, she was greeted with at least four house elves, happily welcoming her back and wishing her a good morning and informing her that her breakfast would be ready shortly.

“Thank you, Tweezel.” Sara smiled down at the house elf by her side that was just about to run off to make her breakfast, “But that won’t be necessary this morning. I’ll be fine with just an apple, if that's alright.”

Immediately, a pang of guilt went through Sara as Tweezel’s face dropped in disappointment.

“Is Mistress Bennett sure? Tweezel makes good breakfast, Mistress.” The house elf practically pouted at her.

“Positive.” Sara nodded firmly, but then she smiled again and crouched down so that she was at eye level with Tweezel. “”But I have a feeling that I’ll be absolutely famished tomorrow morning. Do you think it would be alright if I came down a little earlier for breakfast?”

Tweezel’s face lit up immediately and she was practically bouncing on the spot.

“Oh yes, Mistress Bennett, Tweezel would be so happy to make Mistress’s breakfast tomorrow!” She smiled up at Sara, before bouncing off to find the “prettiest of apples” for Sara.

Sara stood up straight, smiling to herself in amusement. She was just about to ask another house elf that she recognised to be Dotty for a glass of water when a voice startled her.

“Tweezel’s great isn’t she.”

Sara was so surprised to see another student this earlier in the day that she had to actively resist from reaching for the wand sitting in her pocket.

 “Oh,” She paused, spotting a small hufflepuff girl with brown hair and a kind smile sitting just a few feet to her left, with what looked like a mug of hot chocolate curled up in her hands. “Yes, she is.”

“I’m Lou-Ann.” The girl gave her a friendly smile and a quick wave, before taking a sip from the mug in her hands.

“Sara.” Sara greeted in return, feeling more than a little awkward. She hadn’t been expecting there to be anyone else in here at this time. Technically no student should be in the kitchens at any time of the day.

“I know.” Lou-Ann smiled around her mug. She smiled a lot, Sara noted. “We have charms together.”

“Ah.” Sara replied, wondering if maybe she could just make an excuse and leave now. Tweezel might be a bit upset that she left without her food but Sara was sure she’d be okay.

“So, why are you up so early? One of the girls in my dorm snores like a troll and I couldn’t get back to sleep because of it.” Lou-Ann explained with a laugh. Sara refrained from pointing out that she hadn’t actually asked Lou-Ann why she was awake and therefore didn’t need an explanation.

“I always get up at this time.” Sara shrugged, causing Lou-Ann to raise her eyebrows.

“Really? But it’s like 4 o’ clock!” Where was Tweezel with that apple?

“Yeah, well, I don’t need a whole lot of sleep.” Sara explained with a shrug. It looked as if Lou-Ann was about to say something else but then Tweezel came running up to Sara, apple in hand, unknowingly rescuing Sara from her unwanted situation.

“Mistress Bennett! Tweezel has found Mistress the most perfect apple for her breakfast!” The house elf exclaimed happily, brandishing the food as though it were a trophy.

“It’s magnificent Tweezel.” Sara couldn’t help the fond smile from taking over her face. If only she was as good with interacting with her fellow students as she was with house elves. Taking the apple from Tweezels hand, Sara thanked her and promised to see her again the next morning for a “proper” meal.

With a friendly smile and goodbye from Lou-Ann, and a nod that could maybe pass as amicable from Sara, she left the kitchens, apple already in her mouth, and headed outside to the lake.

By the time Sara had reached the lake out on the Hogwarts grounds, all that remained of the apple was a chewed up core. Using a quick vanishing spell, Sara disposed of the apple core and sat herself down by the side of a tree. She sat there, contemplating her interaction with the hufflepuff girl. Lou-Ann had seemed nice enough, and she hadn’t done anything wrong really, so why did Sara have to be so short with her?

Huffing out a loud breath, Sara settled herself further into her spot by the tree. What did it matter that she was a little rude? It’s not like she was ever going to speak to the girl again, let alone do something as ridiculous as becoming friends with her. Not that she didn’t like Lou-Ann or anything, like she said, she seemed nice. It was simply that Sara didn’t really have any friends. In her mind, Hogwarts, beautiful and magical as it was, was still just a school. And any kind of friendships or connections made in school never really lasted once you left for the real world – no matter how infinite they may seem at the time. So what was the point, really?

It all just seemed a bit pointless to Sara. She was more than happy to go about her school life, studying, enjoying her free time, perhaps even do a bit of exploring in the vast, curious castle, and then graduate. She could worry about having a social life in the real world.

Besides, Sara reasoned, she had little more than half a year until she was officially finished at Hogwarts. What use was it, making friends this late in the game?

Feeling more content and reassured in her chosen solitude, Sara relaxed against the tree trunk and watched the sunrise, just as she did every morning. Later, she would return to her dorm while her housemates were having breakfast in the Great Hall, prepare for the school day and then head to her first class of the day. Aside from her little interaction in the kitchens, Sara had no reason to believe that this day would be any different to every other Friday. But then Sirius Black had asked her to be his potions tutor.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally can't wait to get past all the setting up chapters and actually get into the story. Please be patient with me, I'm not the most talented of writers I know, and the story might drag a bit but I'm trying lol.  
> Thanks for reading, have a great day!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I googled it, and the Sony Walkman first went on sale in Japan in 1979. But for the purpose of this story, it went on sale in the summer of 1977 because... reasons!

Twelve o’ clock on Saturday, Sirius was awoken to a pillow slamming, quite forcefully, into his face. Groaning out an inaudible complaint, Sirius opened one eye and turned his head in the direction that the pillow had been thrown from. He was met with the face of one James Potter, grinning like the bloody Cheshire Cat.

“Rise and shine, Princess!” James’ voice was much too loud. And cheerful. Why was he always so cheerful in the mornings?

“Hate to break it to you, Padfoot, but it’s not exactly what I’d call morning anymore.” James laughed at Sirius’ grumbling that he had apparently been muttering aloud. “Come on, you lazy sod, you’ve already missed breakfast. Do you really want to miss lunch as well?”

Sirius’ only reply was another mumbled complaint and a rather obscene hand gesture in James’ general direction, before he rolled over in his bed and attempted to return to the dream he had been having just minutes earlier. Sirius had known last night that he would regret staying up all night planning that prank on the Slytherins, but at the time it was such a golden idea that really, he’d had no choice but to stay up until four o’ clock to go through the details. Even now, in his sleep deprived grogginess, Sirius couldn’t wait to run it by the rest of the Marauders. But not yet. He’d tell them all about it later. Right now, he’d sleep.

“I brought you some coffee from the Great Hall, Sirius.” Peter’s timid voice sounded from the other side of Sirius’ bed, accompanied by the sweet, sweet scent of what Sirius could only assume to be the drink of the gods. “I managed to put a heating charm on it to keep it warm for you.”

That got his attention.

Sirius was sitting up in his bed within seconds of Peter finishing his sentence, hands already reaching out for the cup of the black liquid.

“Merlin, Pete, you’re a godsend.” Sirius spoke after a rather large gulp of the heavenly drink. Peter smiled happily at the comment, but with a glance to his right, Sirius found James looking less than pleased.

“You shouldn’t let him take advantage of you so much, Wormtail.” James had that wrinkle in between his eyebrows that he always got when he was being, what Sirius liked to call, Mama Prongs. He always got that look when he disapproved of something one of his friends was doing. For some reason, that Sirius absolutely could not fathom, that look was almost always pointed in Sirius’ direction.

“I don’t seem to remember you being too bothered about taking advantage when you were hungover last weekend and Pete was running around all day acting like your personal assistant.” Sirius retorted, the coffee – already completely drained from the cup – seemed to have done its job and Sirius was feeling much more awake than he had two minutes prior.

“Pff, whatever.” James laughed, shoving Sirius’ shoulder good-naturedly, with an easy smile plastered on his face. “Get a move on or we’re leaving for lunch without you.”

It didn’t take Sirius very long to get ready. Unlike _some_ of his dorm mates – _James_ – Sirius had been blessed with hair that was just naturally perfect. All he had had to do was give his teeth a quick clean, throw on some relatively clean clothes and then, with one last wink to himself in the bathroom mirror, he was bounding down the stairs to the common room where his friends were waiting for him.

“Finally.” James rolled his eyes from where he was standing with Peter in the constantly busy common room.

Ignoring James’ comment, Sirius shoved his friend with his shoulder, an amused smirk gracing his features, as the three Gryffindors made their way to the Great Hall.

They filled the journey to the Great Hall with idle chatter and teasing, occasionally pushing and shoving each other about jokingly. By the time they had all sat down at the Gryffindor table, all three boys were grinning and laughing loudly.

“So,” Sirius began as he fixed himself a plate of food, “I came up with an idea for pranking the Slytherins this Halloween. If everything goes to plan, I think it might be our best one yet.”

James looked away for a moment, allowing his hand to drift up to his hair and ruffle it up, making it even messier than usual.

“I don’t know, Padfoot. Don’t you think we’re getting a bit old for pranks? I mean, we’re seventh years now, after all.” James’ voice was just a tad bit louder than probably necessary. Sirius was just about to ask him what the bloody hell he was on about, when he paused. Turning his head slightly to see what James was looking at, Sirius groaned, rolling his eyes as he faced his friend again.

There, just two seats to his left, was Lily Evans, daintily eating a salad while trying – and failing – to pretend like she couldn’t hear what James and Sirius were saying.

“Really, Prongs?” Sirius leaned in closer to James, lowering his voice as he did so, “I thought we had agreed you were going to give up trying to impress Evans, remember?”

“It’s not that.” Judging by the blush creeping up James’ face right now, it was definitely that. “But I’m head boy now Pads, I have certain…responsibilities.”

His voice was still just this side of too loud and Sirius refrained from pointing out that James wasn’t even wearing his head boy badge.

“Merlin, I thought Moony was bad once he became a prefect. Now there’s two of them” Sirius rolled his eyes and then glanced around the Gryffindor table, noting the absence of the fourth and final Marauder. “Where is Remus anyway?”

“He said he was going to check out a book from the library for his charms essay.” Peter spoke up for the first time since sitting down, having elected to scarf down his lunch instead. “It’s due on Monday.”

“What is it with people and studying on a Saturday?” Sirius exclaimed, his hands spreading out and up in a perplexed motion. “It’s a Saturday. You shouldn’t even be _thinking_ about doing work.”

“Who else is studying today?” James asked, confused with Sirius’ outburst.

“Me, apparently.” Sirius muttered to his plate. “Bennett wants me to meet her at five for potions lessons.”

James’ eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“She actually agreed to help you?” His voice was a mixture of both surprised and impressed. “How’d you manage that?”

“I offered her an IOU.” Sirius muttered, glumly. James let out a loud laugh.

“What’s an IOU?” Peter asked, confused, looking back and forth between the two boys.

“Basically like an open favour.” James explained, he’d stopped laughing but he was still grinning like a mad man, seemingly delighted in his friend’s misery. “She can ask him for something or to do something at any time she wants and he’ll have to do it.”

“Oh.” Peter nodded, judging from his weak smile and glassy eyes, Sirius guessed he still didn’t quite understand but didn’t bother explaining it any further.

“Yeah, well anyway, that She-demon is making me sacrifice my Saturdays for stupid _potions_.” Sirius continued, angrily.

“She-demon is a bit much, don’t you think?” James asked, looking at his suffering friend, amused. He had to hold back another laugh at the look Sirius gave him, stuffing a forkful of pasta into his mouth to suppress a smile.

“Who does Bennett even think she is?” Sirius went on, ignoring the other boy’s amusement.

“The best student in your potions class?” Peter asked, clueless. Peter had dropped out of potions after their OWLS in fifth year.

 “Second best.” James injected urgently, chancing another glance to the left of Sirius. Evans was speaking, rather intently, to another Gryffindor girl but if the rosy colour of her cheeks was anything to go by, Sirius guessed she had heard them.

“Ugh.” Sirius rolled his eyes, yet again, and rose from his seat. “You two are useless. I’m going to see if I can convince Moony to actually experience to some sunlight for once. I’ll see you later.”

He gave his friends a quick wave and turned to leave the Great Hall.

“Hey, you’re still going to come to quidditch practice today right?” James asked before he could walk away. “I need you to cover for Prewett until he gets out of the hospital wing. I booked the pitch for half past four this evening.”

“Sure.” Sirius shrugged, “I’ll see you then.”

 

***

 

He was late.

Sara had had the decency of agreeing to help him, and that insufferable pinhead had returned her kindness by being late to their first tutoring session.

She had waited at the doors to the library for roughly five minutes before becoming impatient and simply walking inside and choosing a suitable table for two people to study at. It was a pretty secluded spot, which favoured Sara’s preferences anyway, but this time the she had chosen the spot for the sole purpose of being out of earshot of anybody else that might be in the library. It was inevitable, she knew, that herself and Sirius would never make it through a full session without bickering, so she had made sure to sit a bit away from anyone else, so as not to bother them. At the moment there were only four other students in the library on this Saturday evening – two Ravenclaws, actually studying, and a Gryffindor and Slytherin from a year below Sara… _not_ studying.

Sara glanced at her watch and sighed. Almost fifteen minutes had passed now. She was beginning to wonder if maybe this had all been some elaborate joke on Black’s part. Well, she thought to herself, if it was his intention to embarrass her or something, he failed. She stubbornly took out her copy of The Time Machine, a muggle book that she had gotten a few years ago, in an attempt to look like she belonged here and not like she was possibly getting stood up.

A full hour had passed now. At some point, Sara had taken out her Sony Walkman, a fantastic little muggle device that her aunt had gifted her with before the beginning of the school year. It was a small sort of handheld box that you put a cassette into and it was connected to a pair of slim headphones to cover your ears. It allowed her to listen to music privately wherever and whenever she wanted. Imagine, portable music, just for you to listen to. Those muggles were ingenious, truly. Her aunt had brought the amazing device back from a trip to Japan that summer and Sara simply adored it. Before returning to school that year, Sara had stocked up on cassette tapes from the muggle store near her apartment in London so that she would have enough music until going home at Christmas where she could get more.

Sara had been so caught up in listening to the music that she had completely forgotten the whole reason for her sitting in the library alone in the first place.

That is until she saw a flushed, sweaty Sirius Black turn the corner and walk down the aisle of bookshelves towards her table. With a quick glance down at her watch, Sara noted the time, supressing a disgruntled grunt. Black was an _hour and a half_ late.

In one smooth motion, Sara paused the cassette, slid the headphones off her head and stowed both in her bag. For a moment, she was confused by the curious expression on Black’s face, as he stared at her bag. Oh, she realised, he’s a pureblood. Being a half-blood that lived in a muggle area, Sara knew all about things like electronics and battery operated devices, but she supposed it would make sense that Black didn’t. Merlin, he probably didn’t even know what a cassette tape was. She almost pitied him. Almost.

“You’re late.” She fixed him with her best glare.

Black said nothing in reply but she saw him rolling his eyes as he sat down next to her. Okay, silence suited Sara just fine. She knelt down to pluck her potions textbook out of her bag. As she did so, however, the movement caused her to get closer to Black and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Ugh, you reek.” Shit. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Black visibly bristled and he turned to her.

“Yeah, well, you would too if you just finished a two hour quidditch practice that you’re not even supposed to be doing.” He snapped at her, “I’m not even on the damn team and they still managed to rope me into it.”

That last part seemed to be muttered more to himself than to Sara, so she ignored it. She spared him a second glance and while she had noticed that he had looked a little sweaty coming in here, now she realised that he was _extremely_ so. She felt her eyebrows crinkle as she held her head up, actively trying not to inhale through her nose.

“You could’ve at least showered afterwards.” Sara muttered, opening up her textbook on the appropriate chapter. She wasn’t sure why her voice had suddenly adopted the strange ‘high and mighty’ tone she was speaking in right now. Perhaps she was just feeling a little jilted for being kept waiting for so long.

“Whatever.” Black rolled his eyes again and slouched into his chair, his expression not exactly hiding the fact that he would rather be anywhere else but here.

“Right.” Sara began. Merlin, why did she agree to this? “What did you want to start with?”

 

***

 

Twenty minutes of bickering later, Sara was pretty sure that Black had just stopped listening to her at this stage. From the looks of it, he was too focused on trying to twist the feathers of his quill into some intricate plait rather than actually paying attention to her. She wasn’t exactly surprised. After all, if you convinced a person to take time out of their day to teach you something, why _would_ you try to actually learn it?

She sighed.

“What?” Black rolled his eyes _again_ and fixed her with a look, clearly looking for a fight. Oh so he doesn’t hear her prattling on about potions for the last twenty minutes, but one slightly annoyed sigh, he hears.

“Nothing.” Sara shook her head. This was supposed to be an hour long session but she was already exhausted.

“No, please.” Black narrowed his eyes and turned in his seat so that his entire body was facing Sara. “ _Do tell_. Is Your Highness displeased?”

It took everything in Sara’s power not to growl.

“Don’t call me that.” She ground out. She leaned in closer to Black, her tone vicious. “Don’t forget that you came to me, Black. I have better things to be doing than listening to you disrespecting me when all I’m trying to do is help.”

Sara’s vision had practically turned red when Black snorted at the word ‘disrespect’.

“Please.” He scoffed, leaning back in his chair. If she hadn’t already noticed the tense set of his shoulders, Sara might’ve said that he looked completely relaxed, unbothered by her words. “As if _you_ have better things to do. Who are going to do them with, hmm? Have you got an imaginary friend no one knows about?”

Sara bit the inside of her cheek to refrain from saying something she might regret later.

“I can think of one thing I could be doing instead of this.” She straightened in her seat, gripping the edges of her textbook.

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” Black threw a scornful smirk at her.

“Watching you fail potions for the rest of year.” She bit back with a smirk of her own. She was careful not to slam her textbook closed, determined to not let Black see how much his last comment had actually got to her. Calmly as she could, Sara rose from her chair and walked away from the table.

She had gotten halfway to the door when she heard a muffled “Ah, shit.” behind her and then the sound of a chair scraping against the wooden floor.

“Bennett, hang on a second.” Black said loudly from somewhere she couldn’t see. By the sounds of it though, he was getting closer to her.

Not wanting to hear whatever he had to say, Sara kept walking, exiting the library.

When she was sure that she had gotten far enough away from the library, Sara allowed herself to take a loud breath, mentally berating herself for letting Black get to her. She didn’t know what it was that made him so infuriating but there was just something about him that drove her completely mental, all the time.

She had always managed to remain unattached, distant even, when talking to any of her peers. But for some reason, that Sara couldn’t understand, every time Sirius Black opened his mouth she just couldn’t help but snap back at him. Thinking back to her run in with the Hufflepuff, Lou-Ann, the day before, Sara found herself wishing that she could simply brush off anything Black said to her the same way she had been able to brush off the Hufflepuff’s friendly words.

Having taken a few seconds to calm herself down, Sara started down the stairs towards the Gryffindor common room. She had realised her mistake in agreeing to help Black and now she was going to continue going about her day, determined not to let the Gryffindor boy ruin the rest of her evening.

She was just thinking of sneaking into Hogsmeade and treating herself to some butterbeer and maybe something from Honeydukes – it had been a while since she had used the passage behind the tapestry in the hallway of the girls dormitory – when she felt something tug on her elbow.

Thinking that she maybe snagged her sleeve on something, Sara turned around, her gaze angled towards her elbow. Confusion spread across her face as she looked down at the long, slender fingers that were wrapped around her arm. It took her about half a second to realise that there must’ve been a person attached to the hand on her arm and she quickly raised her head.

“Were you following me?” She asked Black, suspicion colouring her tone.

“No.” Black wasn’t meeting her eyes, instead choosing to look at something just above her shoulder.

“Can you let go of my arm, please?” Sara deadpanned. The heat seeping through her shirt from Black’s hand was getting uncomfortable and his grip was surprisingly firm, probably to ensure she wouldn’t make another run for it.

“Oh, right.” Black released her arm quickly, as if just now realising that he was holding onto something very hot that could burn him. “Sorry.”

Sara sighed and faced him completely, bracing herself for whatever he had to say this time.

“What do you want, Black?” She was suddenly reminded of asking that same exact question before being roped into tutoring an asshole.

“I’m sorry, alight?” Black lifted his shoulders in a way that she presumed was supposed to be a shrug. “I shouldn’t have said you didn’t have any friends.”

“I don’t have any friends.” Sara shrugged, indifferent. “I’m not angry at you because you stated the truth.”

“Well, why are you angry then?” Black asked, clearly frustrated as he threw his hands in the air helplessly.

“I’m not.” Sara replied, “You just annoy me.”

Black’s only response was a blank stare so Sara continued.

“I agreed to tutoring you, took time out of my day to help you, and you repay me by showing up late, not paying attention to me when I’m actually trying to teach you the material, and picking pathetic fights over the slightest thing.” At some point in her little lecture, Sara had crossed her arms and she quickly dropped them to her sides now, not wanting to look even more stuck up than she probably already did.

“Fine.” Black sighed, looking very much like a four year old after being scolded. “If you keep tutoring me in potions, I promise to tone down the comments and take it seriously.”

Sara found that hard to believe but for reasons unknown to her, she found her head nodding, seemingly of its accord.

“Really?” Black’s head perked up. Literally, perked up. Sara couldn’t figure out why, but it reminded her of a puppy.

“Sure.” She shrugged.

“Great. Thanks.” He straightened and braced himself. “Now about this whole Saturday thing..”

Sara rolled her eyes. Merlin, he’s insufferable.

“Just,” She shrugged again, tired of this conversation and wanting nothing more than to escape through the secret passage outside her dorm and binge on some sweets from Honeydukes, “let me know what days you’re free and I’ll see if anything suits.”

Black nodded, understanding, and Sara turned and walked the rest of the way to the common room alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also for the purpose of this story, there are certain secret passage ways that the Marauders couldn't have known about and are therefore not on the map. I mean, I'm sure there are parts of the castle like the girls dormitory or other house common rooms that they couldn't get into so they wouldn't know about any secret spots there (although I fully believe James and Sirius would've figured out a way to get up the girls stairs just for the sake of being able to).
> 
> Thank you to anyone that's still reading, you're awesome.
> 
> P.S. thanks to Amanda for her comment, it made me so happy that I just had to post this the second I finished writing it (you can also blame her for my awful grammar because I was so excited to post another chapter that I barely even checked it!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this update is really, really late. Sorry.  
> I got kind of stuck and couldn't seem to write anything so instead I went on to pottermore and took the sorting quiz "in character" of Sara. Fun fact, she really is a Gryffindor, so that's fun. I also found out her patronus which is what inspired this chapter. Before writing this, I had originally planned on her patronus to be a Thestral (for reasons that will become obvious in later chapters) but I already felt like her current patronus was a bit too... "OC is so special" if that makes sense so I just stayed with the one pottermore gave her. I'm really unhappy with this chapter to be honest, but it's been over a month and this is literally all that would come out of my brain.
> 
> Also, after reading back over previous chapters i noticed the truly awful grammar and spelling mistakes and i keep meaning to go back and fix it but life just keeps getting in the way. Anyway hope you like this chapter.

Monday morning came back around far too soon. Despite the fact that he had spent the majority of the two days with his friends, Sirius couldn’t help but feel like he had wasted his weekend. Aside from the disastrous first potions lesson with Bennett, all Sirius had really done in the past two days was participate in the torture that James called quidditch practice, raid Peter’s secret stash of chocolate frogs and then – to his own horror – go to bed at a ridiculously early hour on Sunday night.

In his defence, Sirius had his reasons for the unusually early bedtime.

There was going to be a full moon tonight. So, not only did that mean he was going to have to be able to actually focus in class for a change, in order to take notes for Remus, who was going to be skipping today, but it also meant that he was going to be chasing a werewolf around the Forbidden Forest for a large portion of the night. Meaning, the more sleep he got on Sunday night, the better.

Unfortunately for Sirius, however, the extra hours of sleep he had gotten still did nothing to alter his opinion of Monday mornings. Sitting in the Great Hall with his head dipping down so close to his coffee mug that his nose was practically touching the hot liquid, Sirius contemplated how hard it would be to steal a timeturner, use it to go back in time to meet the witch or wizard that invented Mondays, and then stupefy them so hard that they forgot their own name.

“Oi, Padfoot.” The eerily energetic voice of James Potter interrupted his musings, “You get your face any closer to that coffee and you’ll end up drowning in it.”

“Hmm.” Was all the response Sirius gave, still not moving from his hunched over position above the steaming mug.

“Come on, mate.” James tried again, taking a bite out of his toast, “At least eat something instead of just living off that sludge all the time. I heard one of the Ravnclaws from our DADA class saying that we were gonna be practising producing a patronus today. You’re going to need all the energy you can get for that.”

“I can already produce a patronus.” Sirius grumbled into his coffee.

“Yeah but Professor Spivot doesn’t know that.” James smirked, raising his chin cockily, “Can’t wait to see her face when we both produce a fully corporeal patronus on our first go.”

Sirius huffed in amusement, finally lifting his head away from the table so that he could actually finish off his drink. From beside him, Peter spoke up, not bothering to swallow his rather large mouthful of porridge first.

“I wonder what my patronus will be.” He mused, voice alight with an almost childlike curiosity.

James shared a look with Sirius, both seemed to be saying _really?_

“Gee, _Wormtail_ ,” Sirius deadpanned, “I don’t know. What animal could you _possibly_ have a magical connection to?”

“I don’t know.” Peter swallowed another spoon of porridge and raised his head, looking out into the distance in contemplation. “I quite like giraffes?”

James winced, both disappointed and embarrassed for the poor boy.

“Are you taking the piss?” Sirius exclaimed, the last of his coffee sloshed around in the large cup as he waved his arms around in disbelief. “Merlin, Pete, you literally _turn into_ a mouse and you think your patronus is a bloody _giraffe_?”

The younger Gyrffindor blushed furiously.

“Oh,” Peter looked down at his hands, embarrassed. “Yeah I – I hadn’t thought of that.”

Taking pity on his friend, Sirius put down his now empty cup and rested his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Sorry, Wormtail.” He squezzed the younger boy’s shoulder and gave him a smile, “Don’t mind me I’m just tired.”

“That’s alright, Sirius.” The younger boy brightened immediately, having apparently completely forgiven Sirius.

“Well, now that that’s done with,” James interjected, finishing off the last of his toast, “What do you boys say we head to class and then visit Remus in the hospital wing at lunch?”

“He’s gonna be so pissed that he’s missing the most exciting Defence Against the Dark Arts class we’ll have probably all year.” Sirius chuckled. It had been a long time since the three present Marauders had expressed pity for Remus over his “furry little problem”, having quickly realised that it tended to put the absent boy more at ease when they were able to joke and tease him about it. Remus had confessed to Sirius, one drunken night, that it made him feel more accepted and _human_ when his friends were able to just look at him like normal and take the piss out of him.

The walk to the DADA classroom was filled with the usual teasing and chattering.

When the three boys finally entered the classroom, they were met with a large room, cleared of the chairs and desks that normally occupied the classroom. Most of their classmates were already present, standing around in clusters, all of them chatting to each other creating a buzz of noise.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius spotted a mane of shiny, dark hair and a flash of pale skin. There, in the very back of the room, was Sara Bennett, leaning against the wall by herself. For the second time that week, Sirius noticed the curious device in her hand that connected to an odd looking headset she wore. He wasn’t exactly sure what the curious object was or what it did, but he couldn’t help but notice the serene look on Bennett’s face whenever she wore it. She looked strangely peaceful and – like she was enjoying herself? Despite her standing all alone at the back of the classroom with no one to talk to.

Sirius was just contemplating how, whenever he’s left alone with nobody to talk to, he feels awkward and immediately has to find someone that he can start a conversation with – and how does she manage to always seem so comfortable with being alone all the time? – when the movement of Sara removing the strange headset and stowing the device away alerted Sirius to the arrival of the Professor.

“Good morning class.” Professor Spivot, a pleasant young witch, barely graduated a couple years before the current seventh years, announced her presence.

There was a hum of half-hearted replies to her greeting among the class.

“As many of you may have heard,” Professor Spivot continued, “Today we will be trying out casting a patronus charm. Now, this is usually on the curriculum for sixth year but it’s my understanding that your previous professor never got around to that before the um… fire incident.”

There was a trickle of muffled laughs and sniggers at the mention of the accident their old DADA professor had been in last year.

“So,” Spivot cleared her throat, regaining control of the class, “For that reason, this class will be the first of two practical classes for you to cast this spell. Many of you may not get it at first, likely not even during this class. But don’t let that deter you. It’s an extremely difficult spell that many adult wizards can’t even cast. Just try to stay positive and keep on trying. Now first things first, a quick revision of the theory…”

 

***

 

After ten minutes of Professor Spivot going over the instructions and advice for casting a patronus, all the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students were spread out throughout the room, apparently needing enough space should anyone manage to produce a corporeal patronus. Sirius had nabbed a spot right in the middle of the room, with James on his right side, the two boys wanting to have a large enough audience.

Once Spivot gave the word, the entire class exploded into exclamations of _expect patronum_ , with only a few strands of silver produced by even fewer wands. Sirius turned to his best friend and smirked.

“Ready to show these tossers how it’s really done, Prongs?”

“Let’s do it.” James gave a toothy smile, wand at the ready.

Sirius raised his own wand, confidently and closed his eyes. He pictured himself back on the stool with the Sorting Hat, remembering the pure joy when he finally confirmed that he was nothing like his parents, he was a Gryffindor. He remembered the moment in first year, sitting in his dorm with three weird and equally crazy boys, laughing about something utterly ridiculous and forgettable, thinking _this is what a family is_. He remembered the first time he transformed into his animagus form, for once, since his awkward teenage growth spurt, feeling at peace in his body. Feeling the strength burning through his veins as he raced through the forest in dog form with a stag, a mouse and a werewolf by his side. He remembered his cousin Andromeda, his fellow black sheep of the family, introducing him to baby Dora, hearing his cousin’s fond words as she said that she would love if he could be a part of her life. He remembered running away from Grimmauld Place and going straight to James, hearing his best friend in the whole world call him brother for the first time.

Sirius opened his eyes, a warm feeling spread throughout his body and he held his wand a little straighter, smiled, and exclaimed “ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

In a sudden burst, a huge, silver dog emerged from his wand. Unsurprisingly, it looked exactly like Sirius when he was in Padfoot form. The dog bounded around the room, seeming to almost glow brighter as the gasps of his classmates registered to Sirius’ ears.

“Oh, bravo boys!” Professor Spivot exclaimed as the silver dog started to play fight with the giant silver stag that had burst from James’ wand at the same time. “They’re just stunning! Oh, fifty points to Gryffindor. Each!”

Sirius shared a smirk with James, the two boys practically preening under the praise and attention. Sirius spared a glance at his classmates and, among the looks of awe, spotted a few sour expressions. He winked at one particular Ravenclaw boy that looked to be absolutely fuming.

About half a class period later, there had been four more corporeal patronuses cast and quite a lot of semi-solid wisps of silver coming out of students’ wands. Sirius’ dog was still prancing around the room, trying to catch the hawk patronus of a pretty Ravenclaw girl. Sirius had entertained the idea of flirting with her for a while but judging by the extremely affectionate kiss and proud look the blonde girl beside her gave the Ravenclaw, Sirius assumed he would only be wasting his time.

Instead, he resorted to leaning against the back wall, pretending to listen to James prattling on about how it was nothing short of fate that Lily Evans just happened to produce a doe as her patronus. Sure, Sirius had been about as gobsmacked as everyone else in the class when the redhead produced the female equivalent of James’ patronus and had stood in absolute silence as the two stared at each other in shock. But that was fifteen minutes ago and all the two had done about it was blush furiously and stand on opposite sides of the room. Honestly though, immediate shock aside, Sirius really wasn’t that surprised. Ever since they had started writing to each other last summer, the two Gryffindors had been dancing around each other for months.

Humming something that could pass as a response to whatever James had said last, Sirius let his attention drift to his left for probably the fifth time now, his brow furrowing in confusion. Sara Bennett was standing by the wall, staring down at the wand in her hand, wearing an odd expression that Sirius couldn’t quite decipher. She hadn’t even tried to cast the spell yet. She had just been standing in silence for the entire class.

Something in Sirius surprised him when he felt the overwhelming urge to walk over to her, leaving an oblivious James who simply continued to ponder his “soulmateness” with Lily.

He got about five feet from her before Bennett finally noticed him approaching.

“Black.” She nodded, then cleared her throat.

“You haven’t tried it yet.” Sirius noted, dipping his gaze to her wand and then returning to her face. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining the light dusting of pink spread across her face or not.

“How observant of you.” Bennett bit back a little defensively. She lowered her wand to her side now, perhaps deciding to give up now that she’d been spotted struggling. For reasons he couldn’t explain, that didn’t sit well with Sirius at all.

“Well you got to at least try.” He implored. “It doesn’t matter if nothing forms or not. That’s why Spivot is giving us a second class later in the year.”

For some reason, Sara seemed to bristle at his words. He was just trying to help? Excuse him for trying to stick to his word and not annoy her all the time.

“It’s not because I’m afraid it won’t work.” She replied with just a hint of venom in her tone.

“Well then what’s the problem?” Sirius lifted his arms, palms facing up, “Just think of something happy and say the words!”

Sara dropped her gaze to the floor. This time Sirius knew he didn’t imagine it when he saw the blush reach her cheeks.

“I…” She cut herself off, refusing to meet his eyes.

Oh. OH. It finally hit Sirius.

“Look,” He said, suddenly feeling very awkward and wondering why he thought it would be a good idea to walk over here in the first place. An overwhelming sense of pity washed over him. He always thought Bennett was a bit of a stick in the mud and sure, he still didn’t exactly like her – at all actually – but she had agreed to help him with potions even though she didn’t owe him anything and the thought that this girl in front of him literally could not think of a single memory happy enough to cast a patronus was… sad.

He was staring, he realised too late. Bennett was looking at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence and judging by her expression she knew that he was pitying her. And she did _not_ seem to like that.

Sirius cleared his throat.

“Look,” He tried again, “It doesn’t have to be like, the best fucking memory you’ve ever had. Just…try to think of something that makes you happy.”

She was frowning at her shoes again. It struck Sirius as the most human the girl had ever looked. Normally she was always so… poised?

“What do you think about?”

 _My friends_. He couldn’t say that. Not when he knew she didn’t have any – whether by choice or not.

“Random things.” He shrugged, “When I got sorted into Gryffindor, my baby cousin, places I like to go – maybe you should think of the library, since you seem to like to spend all your Saturdays there?”

Bennett actually looked mildly amused by that last part.

“Places you like to go…” She seemed to be considering something, “Huh. Thanks, Black.”

He couldn’t put his finger on it, but somehow she had managed to make a simple thanks sound like a dismissal. Taking the hint, Sirius – gladly – retreated back to James, muttering out a “no problem” on the way.

He was right, James hadn’t even noticed he was gone. He was still rambling about something that sounded like “A doe, Padfoot. And I’m a stag. What does that - ?”

Sirius tuned out again. Keeping his head facing forwards, he chanced a glance towards Bennett.

She had her wand raised again, eyes closed. Her eyebrows pinched together for a moment, but then she shook her head and, as if starting over, returned to the calm expression she had been wearing earlier. When she opened her eyes, they were ablaze with something akin to determination, intent and pure light. Sirius watched her lips in anticipation for the spell to fall from them as she muttered the words.

But they never moved. He was facing her now and he could see, clear as day, her lips didn't move an inch. And yet…

A brilliant burst of light exploded from the witch’s wand. Within seconds, the explosion of silver took form and what could only be described as a _majestic_ creature stood in place of the blinding light.

It didn’t run, or dance around like all the others had. It just turned to face its caster head on and loomed over her, unmoving. It would take Sirius another minute to realise that he wasn’t the only one to be stunned into silence. The entire classroom had fell silent, nearly all other patronuses fizzling out of existence as the students became too distracted to keep the spell going.

Standing in front of Sara Bennett, easily three times the size of the actual real life creature, was a giant leopardess. In an instant, the creature stood to its full height, towering a couple feet above Sara’s head, standing proud and noble, swirls of silver mist curling around its legs like white fire. It was beautiful.

Sirius finally managed to tear his eyes away from the giant beast to look at Sara.

She looked about as stunned as Sirius felt. Utterly transfixed by the leopardess standing before her, frozen. There was a collective gasp throughout the classroom as the giant leopardess finally stirred. In a truly beautiful display, the leopardess bowed its head so that it was eye level with Sara, wisps of silver trailing in its path as it moved, and then closed its eyes, waiting.

With a shaky breath, Sara rested a hand on the beast’s head. Upon touching the silvery beast, Sara seemed to awaken. A smile, so breathtaking that it was almost as bright as the patronus before her, taking over her face. Sara leaned forward so that she was forehead to forehead with the giant leopardess. The second she pulled away, the beast, seemingly with a mind of its own, straightened to its full height once more and began climbing the air in a spiral, fading out of existence until all that remained of the creature was silvery trails of smoke, still moving up in a slow spiral motion.

For a full minute, there was absolute silence. Sirius watched on in awe as Sara continued to stare into the whirlpool of sliver wisps that still lingered in the air, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

“One – _one hundred points_ to Gryffindor.” Professor Spivot’s spoke softly into the silence. The sudden noise stirred the rest of the class and students immediately began muttering to each other in hushed whispers.

Sirius watched Professor Spivot approach Sara, who was now looking _extremely_ self-conscious.

“Miss Bennett.” Spivot began quietly, though Sirius was still standing close enough to hear her words. “That was probably the most powerful patronus I have ever seen cast. To cast a patronus that size… would take an insurmountable amount of skill. And a _very_ strong memory. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to inform Dumbledore of this?”

Sara simply shrugged. Sirius couldn’t help notice how awkward and uncomfortable she looked, clearly not liking the sudden attention.

“If -” Sirius had to strain to hear what Sara was saying, she was speaking so softly, “If it’s alright with you Professor, I might go to the hospital wing? I feel rather…faint.”

“Of course.” Sara flinched at the hand that the professor rested on her shoulder. “Take the rest of the class. I’ll inform the professor for your next class that you won’t be attending. What do you have next?”

“Um, Charms.” Sara replied.

Spivot gave her a gentle smile in response and then nudged Sara towards her bag that was resting against the back wall.

In a flash, Sara had her bag in her hand and she was walking towards the door, head down. Sirius may have been imagining the lightning fast glance Sara sent his way as she passed him.

The classroom didn’t return to its full volume for a while after Sara had left.

“Whoa.” James breathed next to Sirius. “That was bloody brilliant. And here I thought my stag was big. A leopardess? That’s such an epic patronus!”

Sirius still hadn’t said a word. One thing just kept going through his mind.

She. Didn’t. Move. Her. Lips.

Sara Bennett had just cast a _nonverbal_ patronus charm.

 

***

 

The following classes passed by in a blur. Sirius did feel bad for not paying attention to the lessons, for Remus’ sake only of course, but with a glance to the boy beside him, Sirius found James diligently taking notes for their absent friend instead. Lunch finally came around and, after a brief stop to the Great Hall to pick up some food, Sirius, Peter and James made their way to the hospital wing to visit Remus.

Sirius wondered if Bennett would be there too, considering she hadn’t attended any of their classes after DADA. He couldn’t really blame her, really. It had taken Sirius months to manage to produce his patronus, and another couple months after that to produce one as large as it was now. But Bennett had produced a _massive_ one today, and on her first try no less. Sirius didn’t doubt that once she told Madam Pomfrey about what happened, she had been forced to stay in the hospital wing for the rest of the day. Poppy was nice like that.

However, when they got to the hospital wing, the only bed that was being occupied was the one in the far corner, surrounded by dividing curtains, which Sirius knew to be Remus’ usual spot.

“Alright there, Moony.” James greeted, pulling back the curtain to reveal a very pale and exhausted looking Remus Lupin.

Remus grinned up at his friends and despite the fact that he looked like hell, he immediately launched into a conversation with the three boys, laughing and chatting about nothing and everything.

When Madam Pomfrey – _Please, Remus, I’ve been seeing you every month for seven years now. Call me Poppy._ – came in to let the boys know that lunch would be ending in five minutes and to get going to class, Sirius turned to Remus.

“Hey, Moony, did you see Bennett come in here earlier?”

“No.” Remus frowned in confusion, “No one’s been in here today except me. Why?”

“Oh, that’s right!” James cut in before Sirius could answer, “You should’ve seen it, Moony. We were casting our patronus in DADA today and out of nowhere, halfway through the class, Bennett comes out with this _humongous_ lioness!”

“Lepoardess.” Sirius interjected. “It was a leopard, not a lion.”

“Right, right, whatever.” James waved a dismissive hand, “But anyway, it wasn’t the animal that mattered – although, still, how cool is having a leopard for a patronus? But this thing was bloody huge, Moony. Like, I’m talking practically the size of Hagrid! And it just stood there in the middle of class, looking all menacing and stuff. Everyone was completely blown away. Then this monster of a patronus just turns around and like, _bows_ at Bennett and she like just pets it all calm and shit. Then the leopard just goes “alright, cool bye” and like, disappears. It was wicked!”

During James’ whole retelling of the class this morning, Remus sat, wide eyed, as Peter nodded along in agreement to James’ words.

“Whoa.” Remus said when James had finished.

“That’s what I said.” James laughed, “And at the end of all that, Bennett basically got a free pass from Spivot to get out of Charms afterwards.”

“But she was supposed to go to the hospital wing.” Sirius put in, getting back to his original question, “And she didn’t go to any of our classes after Charms.”

James narrowed his eyes at Sirius.

“Since when did you start noticing Bennett in class?” He asked, suspicious.

“I don’t.” Sirius scoffed, feeling oddly awkward. “If anything it was just a nice change from the usual criticism I normally get from her all the time.”

Remus and James shared a look, both of them frowning in what looked to be a mixture of confusion and concern.

“Sirius,” James began slowly, “Bennett doesn’t criticise you all the time…?”

“What?” Sirius scoffed, suddenly on the defensive. “What are you on about, mate? She’s constantly commenting on whatever I say or do. Always got some snarky remark.”

“Actually, Padfoot,” Remus added, “James is right. I know she doesn’t really like you, but Sara’s pretty quiet. The only time she ever even says anything to you is when you’re antagonising her on purpose.”

Sirius was confused. Bennett was always acting so stuck up all the time, constantly reminding Sirius that she was above him, or that whatever he was doing was like, inferior or something? Sirius mulled over Remus’ words, still not quite understanding when he narrowed his eyes.

“Hang on.” He squinted at Remus accusingly, “Since when is she _Sara_ to you, hmm?”

“Wha-?” If Remus wasn’t so sickly looking, Sirius would’ve sworn that his cheeks were a little flushed. “Well, that’s her name. Why wouldn’t I call her that?”

“Hmm.” Sirius huffed. He suspected there was something more behind it. Perhaps Remus had a bit of a thing for Bennett?

Sirius wasn’t sure why that annoyed him. Probably because Remus could do so much better than that know it all.

“Whatever.” Sirius conceded. “We better get to class anyway. We’ll see you later tonight, yeah?”

“See you guys later.” Remus nodded with a smile.

After the usual goodbyes were done with, the three Gryffindors left for Transfuguration.

They got to the class just in the nick of time. James took a seat in a spot up at the front of the classroom, suspiciously close to where Lily was sitting, Sirius noted. Which left Sirius to nab a spot close to the back of the room with Peter.

Just as he was setting his things down on the desk, Sirius spotted a familiar head of black hair, sitting beside Marlene McKinnon on the right side of the classroom. So, Bennett had finally decided to return to class then.

 

***

 

That was humiliating.

The second Professor Spivot had given the okay, Sara had practically ran out of the DADA class. Everyone had stared at her. Or rather, at her patronus. She hated having all that attention on her.

It was bad enough that just before casting the spell she had basically admitted to Black that she couldn’t think of anything truly happy about her life, but then once she did, a bloody monstrously sized leopardess had burst from her wand.

She was stunned, of course, and obviously she absolutely adored the creature that now felt like part of her, but more than anything, Sara was just really, really embarrassed.

Once she had escaped the suffocating room, Sara had swiftly made her way to the seventh floor, straight towards the Room of Requirement. It opened for her immediately.

When she entered, she found herself standing in a small box of a room with nothing but a plain, wooden door facing her. Letting out a breath that Sara hadn’t realised she had been holding, she gripped the rustic handle of the door and pulled.

The door opened up to a dimly lit cellar. There were crates of an assortment of drinks surrounding her and the quiet sound of casual chatter coming from behind another door, at the top of a staircase located at the other side of the room. Sara took the steps one at a time and slowly poked her nose around the door.

At the sound of the door creaking, a young witch with curly blonde hair looked up from the bar she was leaning against, alert. Upon seeing who the intruder was, the witch smiled.

“Do I even want to know what in the name of Merlin you’re doing here during school hours?” Rosmerta, the barkeep for The Three Broomsticks, gave Sara a disapproving look but Sara caught the fond look in her eyes before the light haired witch could hide it.

“Free period.” Sara explained, sitting down at the bar in front of Rosmerta. It wasn’t _technically_ a lie.

“Well, don’t expect to get served anything other than pumpkin juice at this time of day.” Rosmerta shook her head, waving her wand at something behind her to prepare a drink for her.

“I’d expect nothing more.” Sara smirked. Talking to adults had always been easier for her, she wasn’t sure why. Rosmerta had graduated from Hogwarts at around the same time as Professor Spivot though, so Sara counted her as one of the few young people that she could actually converse well with.

“So,” Rosmerta leaned in conspiratorially with a smile on her face as she set a glass down in front of her, “What brings you to Hogsmeade at this time of day?”

Sara simply shrugged, taking a sip of the sweet pumpkin juice, before rattling off some weak excuse about just wanting a change of scenery for an hour, adding in a joke about how the company was better. The two continued to chat amicably, pausing occasionally when Rosmerta had to serve another customer. They talked about what they had both done for the week of Halloweeen just gone by and any plans for the Christmas break. Rosmerta had recently met a handsome young wizard and she was unsure whether or not it was still too soon to invite him to her home for the holidays. Sara had merely shrugged, explaining that she had only ever been with muggles and that she wasn’t sure if men in the wizarding world had different standards or expectations. That had sparked another conversation about her life in muggle London. It was nice, Sara thought, to be able to talk to someone like this. Although she still maintained that she didn’t need it from any of her fellow classmates. After all, it was different outside of Hogwarts. Life felt more…real.

It wasn’t until her stomach started grumbling, loud and angry, that Sara realised that she had skipped most of her lessons and it was now lunch time. She ate at the The Three Broomsticks, since it was convenient, and then after paying and thanking Rosmerta for the food and drink, she said her goodbyes and left through the cellar door again.

She arrived at Transfiguration early. She hoped it might balance out the whole skipping thing earlier, she didn’t think it did.

Sara was just opening her textbook when she became aware of a body plonking themselves down on the seat beside her. She turned her head to see who had disturbed her. Oh. It was just Marlene.

Marlene was a fellow Gryffindor from her year that lived in the same dorm room as Sara. She seemed nice enough, maybe a bit loud but Sara never really had anything against the girl.

“Hey,” The blonde Gryffindor smiled amiably.

“Um, hi.” Sara greeted. Like she said, she didn’t have a problem with Marlene, but they also never really spoke too often and Sara was racking her brain trying to figure out why the girl had suddenly decided to sit next to her.

“Professor Charon was asking about you in Ancient Runes today.” Marlene said casually, opening up her transfiguration textbook, clearly not intending to move any time soon. “I overheard Professor Spivot telling Flitwick that you were in the hospital wing after DADA so I covered for you and told him you were still there.”

“Oh.” Sara wasn’t sure what to say to that. That was actually…really nice of her. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Marlene grinned, “I hope you’re feeling better. That was impressive what you did in class today. I only managed to get a few slivers out of my wand but I’m determined to form a fully corporeal figure eventually. I’m dying to know what my patronus is. Did you see Lily’s? A doe! Can you believe it? She went so red when she saw James staring at her. Honestly, I’m not even surprised. I mean, she admitted to me that she had a crush on him back in like, fifth year and everyone knows that Potter is completely in love with her. They should really just get together already. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. Did you hear that Alice finally asked out that Longbottom guy? They’ve been pining after each other for months now so I guess Alice just got tired of waiting and decided to do just do it herself. Honestly, I think…”

Marlene talked a lot. But Sara was content to let her drone on about this or that while she tried and failed to pay attention. Her voice was boisterous and a little on the loud side, as if in a constant battle with the air to be heard by everyone in her vicinity – a battle that she seemed to be winning.

Marlene only fell silent when Professor McGonagall entered the room, drawing everyone to attention and promptly beginning the lesson.

The lesson passed without incident and soon enough they were packing up their books, getting ready to move on to the next class.

“What have you got next?” Marlene asked Sara as they were stuffing their textbooks into their bags.

“Ah, Muggle Studies.” Sara answered softly.

“Aren’t you a Half-Blood?” Marlene cocked her head, her eyebrows pinching in confusion.

“Yeah, I am.” Sara shrugged, “I didn’t need any of the classes against it for what I want to do after school so I figured it would be an easy pass.”

“Hah!” Marlene barked out, a delighted smile on her face. “That’s genius. Who knew you were so sneaky.”

She laughed once more and Sara gave her a tentative smile in return.

“Anyway,” Marlene stood up and shouldered her bag, “I’ve got Divination next so I’ll see you later, Sara.”

Sara returned the small wave that the loud Grffyindor gave her and began to stand up herself. She stopped when she heard Marlene’s voice once more, a quick “Oh, hey Sirius” as she walked away. Sara glanced up and lo and behold, Sirius Black was standing above her, staring down at her with an odd expression.

“Black.” She greeted, like always. When he said nothing in return, Sara continued her task in gathering up her belongs and standing up from the desk.

She turned to him, waiting for him to say whatever he had to say. Which was apparently nothing.

She was beginning to feel a bit awkward now, remembering the conversation they had had in DADA earlier and the strange look he gave as she left the room. She was about to ask him what he wanted when it hit her. They were supposed to sort out a new day for their potions tutoring instead of Saturday. He was probably waiting for her to tell him what days she was available.

“So have you figured out what days will work for yet?” She spoke into the awkward silence, shrugging on the strap of her bag and looked at Sirius expectantly.

“Huh?” Sirius gave her a bewildered look.

“For potions?” Sara clarified, nodding her head once for emphasis. “That’s why you came over here, right? To tell me what days you can do?”

“Oh, right.” Sirius shook his head, his long hair brushing his jawline from the motion. “Ah, I can only do Tuesdays or Thursdays, after dinner.”

Sara nodded, thinking.

“Okay,” She said, her eyes sliding to the left and biting her lower lip as she tried to figure out how to make those days work. “Thursday should be okay most weeks but I intern with Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing some weeks on Thursdays and Fridays so we’ll have to do another day on those weeks. Tuesdays my timetable is full of pretty intense classes so I don’t think I’d have the energy to teach potions then. It will have to be Saturdays on the weeks that Thursdays don't work I’m afraid.”

Sirius nodded distractedly. Sara’s eyebrows nearly reached her hairline.

After all the fuss he put up about not wanting to study on a Saturday, he seemed to accept that very quickly.

“Are – Are you okay?” Sara asked after half a minute of Sirius not saying anything to her. “Sirius?”

At the sound of his first name, Sirius was jerked back to reality.

“You didn’t move your lips.” He blurted out. It sounded almost like he was accusing her. Sara was confused.

“What?” Her eyebrows crinkled and she straightened, utterly clueless about what he was talking about but for some reason felt defensive.

“Earlier.” He was definitely accusing her, if his tone of voice was anything to go by. “You cast that patronus nonverbally.”

“Oh.” Sara rocked back on her heels, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Apparently that wasn’t the response that Sirius was looking for.

“You guess?” He asked, incredulous. “You just cast one of the hardest spells in the world _nonverbally_ and your answer is _you guess?_ ”

“I’ve always been good at nonverbal spells.” Sara explained, shrugging, hoping to end this conversation soon. She had already skipped most of her classes today and now she was going to be late for the next one.

“Oh, _of course_ you are.” Sirius replied snidely. “Because why wouldn’t you be good at them? That would only ruin your whole “I’m the best at everything” shtick.”

Sara bristled at that. She had thought after Black had helped her out with trying to think of a happy memory earlier that he was getting a little easier to handle but evidently, she was mistaken.

“Excuse me?” She raised her eyebrows, her face taking on an indignant expression, “First of all, I’m _not_ the best at everything and I can admit that. But I’m also not going to lie about being good at something for someone else’s benefit. And second, maybe if you focused more on what  _you_ were doing rather than focusing on your delusional ideas of other people, you might actually live up to your own desperate need to be the best.”

That may have been a little harsh, Sara realised too late. But, she thought childishly, he had started it.

Without a second glance at Black, Sara shoved her bag up further on to her shoulder and walked out of the classroom, suddenly very eager to get to Muggle Studies and far away from Sirius Black.

 

*** 

 

The next few days passed without incident for Sara - aside from the odd glare she would receive from Black every time they happened to catch each other's eye. She did feel rather guilty for saying those, admittedly nasty words to him the other day. But she had left it too late to apologise and now it was Thursday morning and if Sara didn't say something to Black about it today, she dreaded the inevitable awkwardness of their potions lesson later that day.

She would apologise to him today after dinner, Sara decided as she exited the kitchens. It was five in the morning and she had given in to the house elves' request to stay and have a proper breakfast - much to Tweezel's delight. However, the prolonged stay in the kitchens had meant less time for Sara to wander the castle in the early morning sun, so she was forced to head straight back to her dorm so that she could get in a shower before any of her dormmates woke up.

Upon entering the Gryffindor common room, Sara was met with the sight of four boys passed out on the couches, one of them looking a lot worse for wear. The boy in question jerked awake at the sound of the portrait closing behind Sara, looking startled and, strangely, a little frightened.

"Sorry." Sara whispered to a bleary eyed Remus Lupin, careful to keep her voice low so as not to disturb the three other boys that were still snoring away on the oversized couches. "Didn't mean to disturb you."

For a moment Sara wondered what the self-proclaimed 'Marauders' were doing sleeping downstairs in the common room in the first place. But then she looked back at Lupin and was immediately flooded with concern. He looked like hell. Deathly pale, a sheen of sweat on his forehead and judging by the awkward angle that he was lying on his side, Sara was willing to bet that he was injured.

"S'okay." Lupin answered her, seeming to have not noticed her concern. He actually looked rather embarrassed and clearly uncomfortable with Sara still being here.

She couldn't blame him really. Sara was sure that he didn't know, but she had figured out Remus Lupin's  _condition_ quite some time ago. It was inevitable really, if she thought about it. Sara had been interning at the hospital wing since the beginning of sixth year, when she realised she wanted to become a healer, and although she hadn't been going as often this year because of the amount of study needed for exams, last year Sara had helped Madam Pomfrey every week...except for the week of the full moon that is. She had walked into the hospital wing one day back in February on a week of a full moon, planning on simply retrieving a scarf that she had left there the previous week, when she saw Remus Lupin lying in a bed, looking like death warmed up. Madam Pomfrey had freaked out, rattling off excuse after excuse to get Sara out of the room, her eyes shifting back to Lupin in what could only be described as paranoia. At first, Sara had been utterly bewildered. But after that day, she had noticed other things. The disappearing act that Lupin would pull every month. The rumour that his mother was ill and that he was visiting her, though Sara now knew that he was actually holed up in the hospital wing. The scars on his face and arms that should've been easily healed through magic but had remained on his face nonetheless. It wasn't until the correlation with the full moon hit her that it finally clicked with Sara. Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

Of course she had been concerned at first, but clearly the school knew about it and if Dumbledore thought it was safe to have a werewolf in the school then who was Sara to argue? It had nothing to do with her and Sara was a firm believer of keeping out of other people's business if she could help it at all.

She should leave now. Remus was looking more uncomfortable by the second as she stood before him, his three friends still passed out beside him, oblivious to his predicament. But she couldn't just walk away yet. Blame it on the same instincts that made her want to be a healer in the first place, but Sara couldn't just let this boy sit there when he was clearly injured. 

Doing a quick calculation in her head, Sara thought it was safe to presume that last night had been Remus' last transformation for the month, the full moon only lasting three days or so. He should be in the hospital wing right now, having Poppy check over him, not lying down with his friends in the early hours of the morning. Why were the other boys down here anyway? Perhaps they had waited up for Remus, Sara considered. They obviously knew about Remus being a werewolf. They weren't exactly subtle about it - honestly, what kind of idiot nicknames a werewolf  _Moony_ and then actually uses that nickname in public? Sara returned her focus to the young werewolf and tried to be as subtle as possible.

"Are you feeling alright, Remus?" She decided to go for the classic 'you don't look so good', "You look like you could be getting a bit ill."

Clearly her attempt to appear clueless hadn't aided in putting the boy at ease. If anything he looked even more uncomfortable.

"Y-yeah. Of course, I'm fine." His voice was tense and his face was guarded. 

"Perhaps you should go see Madam Pomfrey anyway." Sara tried again, "I heard there's a flu going around. You should really make sure that you didn't catch anything."

She hoped he would pick up on the seriousness that she pushed into her words and would actually do as she said.

"Sure." Remus nodded, his expression thankfully clear of any suspicion. If anything, Sara thought he might even be blushing at the concern in her voice. "Will do."

"Good." Sara spared him a soft smile, still trying to ease his discomfort, then straightened and made her way to the stairs to the girls dorm. "I'll see you later then. Feel better."

Once she walked into her dorm room, Sara headed straight for the shower to prepare for the school day to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realised after writing this that I had mentioned in maybe the first or second chapter that it was before Halloween and now suddenly it's set after it even though this whole thing has been set it the span of like, a couple days...let's just ignore that little slip up and pretend that it's always been set after Halloween!  
> Thanks for reading!


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